I saw this over on TechRepublic and though it was good for a response.
Sanity check: 10 dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT
It includes many comments with more dirty secrets. I'm interested in finding out what else people have to say about this.
Here's a few things from the training part of IT which I'm very familiar with:
1. Some tech training managers will encourage a trainer to lie about their experience. Let's face it, experienced trainers are hard to find, and harder to compensate for what the industry pays out to training companies. Let's just say, you get paid more to do the work than to teach it. Basically the same situation that exsts in public education, exists in the IT training field. After 8 years doing training, I'm sick of being poorly compensated and looking to move out of the training field.
2. IT pros will become everyone's tech support even the dang dog. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about this that and the other thing. The worst part is getting asked about services supplied by other companies. I actually have a client who's email is hosted by another company and every time it fails.. he calls me. Like I have any control over that company's servers.
3. IT pros get victimized by every guy who has a dream. If I had a dollar for every money making idea explained to me, I'd wouldn't need to work. People will come to you with an idea. They will tell you "If you just build this thing, we'll make lots of money. Once it's done, I'll sell it myself. Everyone will buy it. I'll give you 10% of the profits." WAIT JUST A MINUTE, you'll get to work your tail off for several months and then possibly make 10% of the money while Joe Schmoe does nothing. And guess what, if it doesn't sell... Oh well let's try this other idea. You just have to realize that your knowledge and skills have value.
4. Students will expect you to solve their issues during class even if they are not related. I cannot tell you how many times I've had this happen. My quick comeback has become that I couldn't take responsibility for their issues because the training company could be held libel.
5. As an IT Trainer, you'll get an incredibly wide range of IT technologies thrown at you, and be expected to become an expert at all of them. And there simply isn't enough time in the day to be an expert at everything. I will say this, I'm now an expert at rapid learning.